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Wednesday, June 15, 2016

After two beheadings, Aquino's still hopeful that Abu Sayyaf hostages could be rescued

MANILA (AFP) - Philippine President Benigno Aquino insisted Wednesday a Norwegian man and other hostages being held by Islamic extremists on a remote southern island could be rescued, after the militants beheaded a second Canadian captive.

Aquino flew on Wednesday to Jolo island, where the Abu Sayyaf group is based and believed to be holding Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad, to meet with troops tasked with tracking the militants through hostile jungle terrain.
"We are getting a clearer picture of what is happening here. We saw today how to refine our operations so we can successfully rescue the remaining hostages," Aquino told reporters travelling with him.

Aquino also said he apologised to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for the murders of the two Canadian men, who were abducted along with Sekkingstad and Filipina Marites Flor from aboard yachts at an exclusive southern marina nine months ago.

Retiree Robert Hall was beheaded on Monday after the Abu Sayyaf's demands for a ransom of 300 million pesos ($6.5 million) were not met. His friend, John Ridsdel, was beheaded in April after a similar ransom demand was not paid.

The Abu Sayyaf is a loose network of a few hundred Islamic militants formed in the 1990s with seed money from Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network that has earned millions of dollars from kidnappings-for-ransom.

It is a radical offshoot of a decades-long Muslim separatist insurgency in the south of the mainly Catholic Philippines that has claimed more than 100,000 lives. The main Muslim rebel groups do not generally engage in kidnappings-for-ransom.